The implication being of course that they all taste the same. I was particularly riveted by the piece because the three lagers chosen for this test were Stella, Heineken and my own Budvar.
My first reaction was to be enraged - how could anybody fail to distinguish craft brewed lager from these two big international euro-fizz brands unless they have been deprived of taste-buds and their tongues cut out? Then I looked at the origin of the research again. The tastings it seemed were carried out by Johan Almenberg and his wife Anna Dreber, both of the Stockholm School of Economics and the critical third man, Robin Goldstein.
Fun
It was seeing the Goldstein name that made me sigh with relief. Anybody who knows anything about the international food or drinks business knows that when you see the Goldstein name there’s going to be some fun, that is so long as it’s not your business he is winding up.
I remembered it was Goldstein who pulled a similar stroke with the wine industry. In May 2008 he revealed the results of an experiment that he conducted in which 500 subjects in a blind taste test preferred cheaper wine to more expensive stuff. This became the basis of an Academic paper Do more expensive wines taste better? followed by a book entitled The Wine Trials.
He followed this up in August of that year.When addressing the American Association of Wine Economists in Portland, Oregon he revealed he had won an award of excellence from the big US wine and lifestyle mag, the Wine Spectator for a completely imaginary restaurant. He called it the Osteria L’Intrepido and created a fake website for the place and a wine list of low-rated Italian wines. Needless to say neither of these events seem to have laid low the wine business, the restaurant business or the Wine Spectator. Indeed I think they gave a lot of entertainment and maybe gave us all something to think about - PMA watch the entries for the Gastro Pub awards and turf out anybody called Goldstein.
I personally think Goldstein, although clearly a man with a serious mission, is good fun. He is just the kind of guy we need around to stop us getting too much up our corporate backsides and good luck to him. I am looking forward to reading his latest book A defense of fast food and cheap beer.
Of course it goes without saying he is completely wrong on this lager issue. Just ask the PMA’s beer experts Roger Protz and Pete Brown, plus all the people who attended this week’s GBBF.
Ian Moss is marketing controller at Budwesier Budvar UK